The 37 000 American troops here are mostly paid for by the United States. The notion that South Korea pays the bill is a myth, albeit a widely believed one. (Off the top of my head, of the $3 - 4 billion dollars it costs to keep US Forces Korea operating each year, South Korea provides around $400 million.) One could argue about what this may cost Koreans in terms of pride, but in monetary terms the burden is carried by the US.

If that is so I apologize for believing a myth without looking into it further. And where did you get your information may I ask?

Do the text books in South Korean public schools discuss the history of North Korean terror attacks against the South or is that now a taboo topic?

uh, newbie american here, examples?

You mean examples of North Korean terror against the South? Well, off the top of my head, you've got the bombing in Burma circa 1980, where North Korean agents tried to take out the upper echelon of the SK government. Don't think I'd shed many tears for those guys, though. Suffice to say, they had it coming.

Then, you've got the blowing up of the civlian airliner in 1987, which apparently was an attempt to dissuade people from attending the Seoul Olympics. A couple of hundred people, all of them civilians, died in that one. Not nice.

Regarding USFK budget, search "USFK costs" using Yahoo or Google and you can discover - from newspaper (English language), US Army, and Korean government sources, among others - how much it costs to keep USFK going, and how much Korea contributes to the total. It fluctuates yearly, but most recently appears that Korea pays $490 million of a $3 billion plus total. The bulk of Korea's contribution is seemingly earmarked for paying wages for Korean employees of USFK (who probably number in excess of 20 000) and infrastructure/facilities upkeep. (I want to stress that the $3 billion total does not include what the US spends in Japan, Guam, or elsewhere in the Pacific, even though much of that spending is very much Korea-related.)

Once again, this information is easily found, appears in a variety of sources, yet is virtually unknown among most Koreans, who if anything believe something to the contrary. One place you wouldn't find this information is a Korean middle or high school text. No accident there. For the record, I am a Canadian and no blind supporter of American foreign policy. I just happen to detest deliberate disinformation and teaching to hate others, especially when it happens in a country's national education system, popular media, etc. This problem is not unique to Korea, but that is hardly a good excuse to condone it.